In an effort to provide better forecasts by tracking the spread of pollutants in the country, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) has opened up two more pollution-monitoring stations: one in Sokoto and the other in Maiduguri.
The Director General of NiMET, Prof. Mansur Matazu, divulged this recently while discussing projects he has undertaken within the first year of his tenure as the Agency’s DG. He added that apart from setting up pollution-monitoring stations, his administration has also procured and is currently installing two hundred (200) automatic weather stations across the country – stations which will greatly improve the accuracy of forecasts dished out by the Agency.
The NiMET DG went on to name other ambitious schemes in the pipeline like the remodeling of NiMET headquarters; the maintenance and overhauling of six (6) low level windshield systems for six (06) different airports; the construction of a Climate Change Modeling Centre at the Meteorology Institute, Katsina amongst others.
According to the NiMET boss, a key part of his mission is the improvement of NiMET’s productivity and effectiveness. And since one of the major ways of achieving this, he said, is through the training of staff, seven hundred (700) Agency employees have thus far undergone relevant trainings in the last one (01) year.
The DG used the opportunity to thank the Federal Government (FG) for all the assistance it has provided NiMET through the Ministry of Aviation – assistance which no doubt is a major reason why the Agency has been able to offer much needed sustenance to other West African countries, permitting them to effectively supply weather forecasting services in their various countries:
“We are supporting more than five (05) countries in West Africa – including Sierra Leone and Liberia – in providing daily weather forecasts. From Abuja, we process the data received, and then we relay the information back to the meteorological agencies of these countries for presentation on their media platforms and national television. We have also been assisting Malawi, Mozambique, Gambia and other English-speaking West African countries with the training of their personnel at our regional training centre in Lagos”, he said.
